The Guy Who Wrote Back to the Future Thinks Your "Hoverboard" Is Trash

LINDSEY WHITNEY BARRY, MICHAEL J. FOX & THEO SCHWARTZ
Character(s): Hoverboard Girl #2, Marty McFly, Hoverboard Girl #1
Film 'BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II' (1989)
Directed By ROBERT ZEMECKIS
22 November 1989
SAH28355
Allstar/UNIVERSAL
WARNING
This Photograph is for editorial use only and is the copyright of UNIVERSAL
and/or the Photographer assigned by the Film or Production Company & can only be reproduced by publications in conjunction with the promotion of the above Film.
A Mandatory Credit To UNIVERSAL is required.
The Photographer should also be credited when known.
No commercial use can be granted without written authority from the Film Company.Allstar Picture Library

And he's right.

We've covered this a bit here before, but it's worth saying again: Those "hoverboards" that you're riding around on with the two giant wheels are not hoverboards. They just aren't. Sorry, but the word hoverboard is pretty simple to decode. "Hover" meaning "to float above the ground." "Board" meaning "a flat piece of wood or other material." These things are certainly boards but they have two wheels and therefore do not hover.

But don't take my word for it. The man who came up with the hoverboard, the screenwriter of all the Back to the Future movies Bob Gale, also thinks your "hoverboard" is garbage. What did he tell Vanity Fair when asked about the wheeled "hoverboards"?

“They’re not hoverboards."

Your goddamn right they're not. But don't be discouraged, Bob Gale has seen the future and that included riding on an honest to God hoverboard at Hendo:

But Gale has also seen the real hoverboard future—before we spoke he
had visited the headquarters of Hendo, the company manufacturing a
board that actually hovers. “I actually go to ride a real hoverboard
in October 2015,” Gale says, sounding as amazed as if he’d actually
traveled forward in time. “My life is very satisfactory.”

This is what Gale is talking about:

What an amazing moment that must have been for him. He had made something up thirty years prior and then suddenly, he got to experience a working prototype. That's a pretty "satisfactory" life indeed. Of course, some of us at GQ don't think the hoverboard is a worthwhile scientific pursuit, but that doesn't mean we don't think it's fucking cool that Bob Gale got to ride one.